As the Senate Intelligence Committee opens its first hearings into Russian interference into the U.S. election, Nunes's partisan buffoonery looks worse and worse.

March 30, 2017

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Senators Richard Burr and Mark Warner were laying it on a little thick at a bipartisan press conference Wednesday. The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee were busy reassuring reporters that they can work together on a bipartisan investigation into allegations that Trump associates may have “coordinated” with Russian officials to sabotage the campaign of Hillary Clinton last year.

Democrat Mark Warner praised his committee members for their determination to get the truth. “All the members of the committee, I’ve been constantly impressed. We know it’s challenging….But so many committee members on both sides of the aisle have constantly stepped up. I think it’s not only our relationship, but it’s the fact that the committee I think has got our back, and they want to see it through.”

A reporter suggested, “without naming another committee,” that the senate panel outshone its House counterpart on issues of integrity and process. Republican Richard Burr ignored the bait but praised the smooth way his committee members and staff had been able to work with the intelligence community, a contrast with the effort led by Nunes.

On Thursday, Burr and Warner got down to work, calling their committee to order. Over on the House side, by contrast, Devin Nunes’s House Intelligence Committee is has gone off the rails. It has absolutely no hearings scheduled, its members are in open warfare, and Nunes is facing bipartisan calls to either recuse himself or step down as chair, after his poorly scripted spy-movie jag to and from and to the White House, to examine what he concluded was probably inadvertent surveillance of Trump transition team members. (This came, you’ll recall, after Trump claimed, with zero evidence, that President Obama had illegally “tapped” his phones in Trump Tower.) Nunes informed Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan, as well as the press, about finding possible inadvertent surveillance of Trump transition officials before telling his supposed committee partner, ranking member Adam Schiff — because the president needed to know his findings right away, he said.

It must be said that the subject of 17 intelligence community probes, plus two legislative committee investigations, is naturally going to be “taking a lot of heat in the news media.” Especially after he falsely accused his predecessor of illegally spying on him – without evidence. The notion that the House Intelligence Committee chair thought it was his job to cool the furrowed orange brow of Dear Leader should concern every American. Especially House Speaker Paul Ryan, who’s in charge of this august body. Oh, but Ryan was in on Nunes’s warning to Trump, so he’s cool with it.

Asked whether Nunes should recuse himself, Ryan was terse but clear: “No, no, no,” he told reporters. Nunes was equally tightlipped, but confident, almost belligerent: “Why should I?” he told a reporter.

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Why? Because he’s made it clear that he can’t be impartial when it comes to this investigation into the Trump team’s increasingly obvious ties to Russia. Unilaterally, he decided to cancel a planned hearing this week with Obama era intelligence officials, including former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. Nunes canceled the hearing to invite FBI director James Comey to return to the committee in closed session—and then he canceled that one, too. Neither has been rescheduled. Now Nunes is farcically blaming the Democrats for the slowdown of his committee’s work. “It appears like Democrats aren’t very interested,” he mused on Wednesday.

But ranking member Adam Schiff sounded very, very interested in an interview with Rachel Maddow Wednesday night. “We can’t have a credible investigation if one of the members, especially the chair, is freelancing,” he told Maddow. Rep. Eric Swalwell seemed to go further with MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: “The chairman panicked. It looks like he is now working with the White House instead of showing the independence that we need to show.” There is growing suspicion that Nunes has encountered evidence that could well cause trouble for Trump, and has thrown his own committee into chaos rather than look into it.

Meanwhile, the Senate Intelligence Committee is doing its best to show that a bipartisan Congressional approach to this crisis is still possible. Since Paul Ryan is comfortable with—in fact, complicit in—Nunes’s bizarre partisanship, it’s the only show in town right now.

Joan WalshTwitterJoan Walsh, The Nation’s national-affairs correspondent, is the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America.

If he is reelected then his constituents are not very desirous of finding the truth over loyalty to the republican cause. I do not care who is that will bypass the committee that he chairs to give away the findings before he brings to the committee and get a consensus to give to anyone is not ethical enough to even be on the committee much less chair it!!!

(1)(0)

Robert Andrewssays:

March 31, 2017 at 12:03 pm

Devin Nunes has been challenged well beyond his capabilities with being chair of the House Intelligence committee. Republicans know that but can't admit to making such an idiotic decision placing him in that position. It would be pretty hilarious if the practice wasn't so widespread.

(6)(0)

James Cerullosays:

March 31, 2017 at 10:47 am

Until repugnants start putting country ahead of party we'll have to do our best to get rid of them. They're scum as Americans.

(7)(1)

Clark M Shanahansays:

March 31, 2017 at 11:35 am

James,
Strong words..
Should we declare war on both those evil, leaking Russkies and those scum repuglicans?

“"We're doing our best to try and get the investigation back on track," Schiff said following the meeting. "We're in the process of exchanging witness lists and are going to see if by the end of the day we can agree on at least a common set of initial witnesses."
Schiff said he and Nunes have agreed to go forward with a closed hearing with FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers. He also requested that Nunes agree to hold the public hearing with former acting Attorney General Sally Yates, former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, though he said the chairman has yet to commit to do so.
Schiff said Nunes has still not revealed the intelligence he said he shared with President Donald Trump and has pledged to share with the committee, or who Nunes met with at the White House.
"It certainly was a part of our discussion, but beyond what we agreed to do, or hope to achieve to do by the end of the day, I really don't want to get into specifics," Schiff said.”

(10)(1)

Francis Smithsays:

March 30, 2017 at 12:40 pm

Nunes is a minor consern. The major, critical concern is that, if Trump is compromised, it must be presumed that he and all others compromised, are potential intelligence leaks to Russia. That means, specifically, that any information shared with any of these people, ccan directly go to the Kremlin.

I never hear this stated by anyone ... Why?

(7)(5)

Clark M Shanahansays:

March 31, 2017 at 8:01 am

You never hear it mentioned because your contention requires a giant leap of faith.
I never watched Red October, maybe I'll need to to get in this witch hunt groove. Maybe, re-watch all those grade B Hollywood productions featuring drunken cosmonauts, to really get it.

(2)(9)

Clark M Shanahansays:

March 31, 2017 at 11:29 am

Case study for group psychosis....
Kinda like the newer huge western forest fires where the heat creates its own micro-climate.
Sadly taking all the air from more immediate disasters, like the senate vote on Planned Parenthood.
Ditto for the ACA, EPA, & Session's nasty works